CHRIS RICE COOPER is a newspaper writer, feature stories writer, poet, fiction writer, photographer, and painter. She maintains a blog at https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com. She has a Bachelor's in Criminal Justice and completed all of her poetry and fiction workshops required for her Master’s in Creative Writing with a focus on poetry. She, her husband Wayne, sons Nicholas and Caleb, cats Nation and Alaska reside in the St. Louis area.

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

The Humanity of Reverend Jim Jones In Five Parts

*The images in this specific piece are granted copyright
privilege by: Public Domain, CCSAL, GNU Free Documentation Licenses, Fair
Use Under The United States Copyright Law, or given copyright privilege in the
form of Public Domain by The Jonestown Institutehttp://jonestown.sdsu.edu

I was only 9 years old when The Guyana Massacre
occurred on that horrible day of November 18, 1978.I was living in small village in Germany
about ten minutes from Spangdahlem Air Force Base where my father was
stationed.This 9 year old was
oblivious to the horror and already getting reading to celebrate Thanksgiving.

My first memory of Jim Jones

was at the Green
Acres Baptist Church library in Warner Robins, Georgia, where my father retired
after twenty years of military service in the Air Force. They had some book on Jim Jones with a few
pages of images in the middle. I
remember his face that of a mountain and hair so black it appeared what I like
to describe as Elvis-blue.

My next memory was the CBS three-hour movie with
Powers Boothe THE GUYANA MASSACRE on Tuesday April 15, 1980, which I watched
in its entirety.At the time I was 8
days shy of my 11th birthday and already fascinated with the deep,
dark, and desperate.

Powers Booth won the 1980 Primetime Emmy Award
for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or a
Special in September of 1980.

It took me a few years to learn that the movie
was mostly fiction.In fact I could
write an entire blog post on each of the individual fictions along with the
individual truths that it would contradict.For an example in the movie Jim and Marceline never had any
children.In real life Jim Jones and
Marceline had seven children:Agnes, Jim
Jr., Lew, Stephan, Stephanie, Suzanne, and Tim Tupper.

I read Tim Reiterman’s book RAVEN and my view of Jim
Jones as a monster was reinforced especially when he wrote in the Preface:“Jones
was not a good man gone bad, as many believed.The seeds of madness, violence and cruelty had grown in him since his
childhood in Indiana.”

I read Julia Scheeres’s A Thousand Lives, which
sheds light on the members of The Peoples Temple and made me realize these
individuals were not brainwashed or stupid; rather these individuals were
compassionate individuals who were willing to sacrifice their own comfort,
financial status, for the betterment of humanity.

Through these books, articles, and documentaries
I always learned something new but there was always that big blood red fact
that kept flashing in my mind – Jim Jones was an evil monster. (right, November 18, 1978.)

Then I read Jeff Guinn’s new book The
Road to Jonestown Jim Jones and Peoples Temple . . .

Reading your book was a
whole new experience for me because I felt for the first time someone was
writing about Jim Jones as a human being.Usually it’s always about Jim Jones as a devil or some kind of
monster.Would it be fair to say that
there were two goals in writing the book – presenting Jim Jones as he really
was a human being and presenting facts on Jones and Jonestown that previously
had not been known?

My
only goal in writing The Road to
Jonestownwas to try and present the whole story.

Jones's first church in Indianapolis.

Previous books
focused almost entirely on Jones's later days in California and then, of
course, on Guyana.

The Peoples Temple in Redwood Valley, California

The Peoples Temple in Los Angeles

There had to be much more, and finding out required tracking
down people who'd never talked before, from the little town where Jones grew up
to Guyanese officials who were long-since retired and scattered around that
jungle-y country.

Congregation of The Peoples Temple in San Francisco

The entrance to Jonestown in Guyana.

02.

Of all the new
information you collected and researched in this book, what was the most
surprising?

To
my knowledge, there has previously been no real attention paid in print to all
the accomplishments of Peoples Temple under the leadership of Jim Jones. I was
staggered by the amount of good the organization did, even in those later times
when Jones was careening further into megalomania and paranoia.

03.

Tim Reiterman in The Raven Preface” wrote:“Jones
was not a good man gone bad, as many believed.The seeds of madness, violence and cruelty had grown in him since his
childhood in Indiana.” What is your
response to this?

I
admire Tim and his book. I do think he's right about "the seeds of madness, violence and cruelty," but there
were also seeds of racial compassion and a desire to help those most in need.
Jones was a complex man and, though it's convenient to remember him as entirely
bad for his whole life, that just isn't true. (This isn't to excuse the
terrible things he did.)

04.

Julia Scheeres,author of A Thousand Lives, said in an interview that Jonestown was a total
failure for numerous reasons one of which was that the soil was too thin to
ever grow self-sustaining crops.What is
your response to this?

I
think Julia overstated the problem. The soil was too thin for many crops, but
Jonestown settlers still produced impressive harvests. There wasn't enough food
because of overcrowding, not because the farm couldn't grow enough to sustain a
reasonably sized population.

Left: Scheeres doing research in The Guyana Newspaper office.

05.

Why did you not mention
the violent tendencies that Jim Jones exhibited as a child?I know from his A & E Biography a school
friend was interviewed on camera stating that Jim Jones shot at him numerous
times with a gun but missed?

Can you give me a
detailed summary of the complete process of writing THE ROAD TO JONESTOWN from the moment it was first conceived in
your brain until final book form?

I
wanted to write a book about America in the 1970s. I think the two things most
remembered about the decade are Watergate and "Don't drink the
Kool-Aid." I felt that there was nothing new I could bring to the subject
of Watergate. I did not find any book about Jim Jones/Jonestown that told the
story in a way I thought was complete. So that's how I chose the subject. I
spent three years doing research, going everywhere Jones went with the
exception of Brazil because he basically accomplished nothing there.

This
was my 19th book. With every publication, I feel mingled relief (It's
over!") and regret ("What more should I have done?").

08.

You were 28 when the
Jonestown Massacre occurred on November 18, 1978.Can you go into great detail about when you
learned of what had happened?How did
you learn it?Where were you?What was your response?Etc.

I
was 27 and living in Dallas. Like everyone else, I heard the first news
bulletins on Sunday and followed all the reports during the next week with
growing horror. It was a tragedy that seemed too great to be true.

09.

Before that day in November,
had you known about Jim Jones before? And what was your memory or recollection
of your knowledge of Jim Jones before that date?

I had never heard of Jim Jones previously.

010.

Can you give me your
education history?Your career history? I
attended the University of Texas at Austin and graduated in 1973. Junior
high English teacher, freelance writer, journalist, author.

011.

What made you transition
from investigative journalism to writing books?

I
began writing books while I still worked at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
By 2006 I was selling enough copies to give up my day job. I've been a
full-time author ever since.

012.

Where were
you born and reared?

I was an Air Force brat and spent most of my
childhood in Europe. I was born in White Plains, New York. I've lived in Fort
Worth since 1978.

013.

Do you have a wife,
children or grandchildren we can mention about in the piece?

I'm
married (to Nora and have been for 44 years). We have two sons (Adam and Grant)
and one grandson (Harrison).

014.

What other writing
projects are you working on now?

I'm
working on two books right now, one nonfiction and the other fiction. I don't
have further details to offer.

017. What are your writing
habits? Your writing routine? Where do
you do most of your writing?

My
work routine is rock solid. I get up around 5 am, take the dog on a walk, eat
some cereal, and go upstairs to my writing room. There's a break for lunch, and
I try to finish up around 4 pm. (Far left above, Guinn in his writing room)

015.

Can you go into detail
about your trip to Guyana and what you saw (that is not included in the book)?

I
think the Guyanese material in the book speaks for itself.

016.

Your contact info?

So
far as your readers are concerned, the best way to contact me is via my page on
Facebook.

As I read Jeff Guinn’s book I was
disappointed and halfway through the book I realized why I was
disappointed: Jeff Guinn’s book is not
about Jim Jones the Monster but Jim Jones the human being, the good human
being, who exhibited good works on behalf of the marginalized; turned down
positions of money and power on behalf of socialism (at least at the beginning);
and exhibited affection to his wife and children.

Suddenly I knew my conflict with reading
Guinn’s book was not due to disappointment but the recognition that I had been
wrong all these years – Jim Jones wasn’t a monster – he was a human being who
actually did good things, but unfortunately, at least in my mind, the evil that
he did was so synonymous with his name, Guyana and Jonestown that I didn’t
consider the realization that he was a human being – until now. (Above, Christmas at the Jones household: standing Suzanne, Marceline; sitting Jones and Jim Jr; up front Stephan and Lew)

So my goal in this feature is to speak of the
good things Jim Jones the human being did throughout the different stages of
his life; and to vindicate him of the acts I thought he committed but in
reality never actually committed at all.We all know about the monster, the evil he did – but not much is known
about the other side – the good side.

JIM JONES AS A CHILD

Guinn description of Jim Jones as a child was a
description I had never heard:

Jimmy was such a polite child, grateful for the slight kindness.

Guinn reveals that though his parents Jim
Senior and Lynetta were poor Jones never lacked for food or affection – there
were numerous Joneses throughout the town who took compassion on the boy.

Left: Jones's father and grandfather

Right: Jones's mother Lynetta Jones

The unique thing about preschool Jimmy was that his parents didn’t join in
general supervision. But from his
earliest ramblings, Jimmy still had plenty of adults watching over him. Two sets of aunts and uncles also lived on
Grant Street – the aunts mothered him if Lynetta was closed up in her house,
which was usually the case. Most days
the Jones aunts provided snacks when Jimmy was hungry and first aid when he
skinned an elbow or knee. Jimmy’s first playmates were cousins. There were dozens of other little Joneses
either in Lynn or out on family farms. Age wise, Jimmy fell about in the
middle. He never lacked for
company. And, like all the other kids,
he was back in his own home by sundown.

Guinn also reveals that though Jimmy Jones was
known to roam around Lynn, Indiana by himself in the 1930s and 1940s it was
common for children to run around the area.

There was nothing unusual about this.From the time they could walk, little boys in town ran all over the
place.It was considered part of the
natural cycle of growing up.

Jimmy Jones’s first experience of going to
church was with Mrs. Myrtle Kennedy, his spiritual mother.Mrs. Kennedy and her husband, pastor of the
local Nazarene Church, took Jimmy under their wing and soon the young Jimmy was
spending evenings with the Kennedys.This did not make Lynetta Jones happy – her spirituality was not the
Trinity God, but two things:reincarnation and the sincere belief, which she claimed came to her in a
revelation from God and her mother, that her son was destined for god-like greatness. (Above, Mrs Kennedy, standing and center, participating in a Nazarene baptism.)

JIM JONES AS A TEENAGER

Jim Jones was never athletically challenged
and was what some would call a crybaby – literally crying at the slightest
thing done to him.And he was very
intelligent in what Guinn described as “college material.”

According to Guinn, Jim Jones’s concern for
black people and other people who were marginalized was real, sincere and
something he wanted to change. (above, Jim Jones's Senior Photo from Richmond High School.)

Even as a child, Jones
was genuinely moved by poverty and by race-related suffering.

Jim Jones graduated a semester ahead of
all the other twelfth graders while holding down a full time night orderly job
at the Reid Hospital where he exhibited true compassion with little or no sleep
at all.

Once at work he cheerfully tackled all the toughest
chores that other orderlies tired to avoid.Above all, these included dealing with cantankerous patients, or else
seriously ill unfortunates who literally reek of decay and despair.Jimmy Jones won them over with warm smiles,
sweet-natured jokes and always empathy.Patients of every background and their families felt that this young man
understood.His memory was prodigious –
Jimmy remembered every sick person’s name and the names of parents and spouses
and children and cousins besides.Some
patients required care of especially personal nature – having diapers changed
or being given sponge baths.Jimmy made
these potentially embarrassing moments almost fun, with his lively chatter and
positive attitude.

JIM JONES MARRIAGE AND
FAMILY LIFE Jim Jones met very devout Christian and daughter
of a minster Marceline while working at Reid Hospital where she was a nurse.The couple married on June 12, 1949, one
month after Jones turned 18.Soon they
would have arguments, not about money or children, but about God.

But the
newlyweds were barely settled in their tiny off-campus apartment when Jim told
Marceline that he didn’t believe in her God at all, since a just and loving Lord
would never permit so much human misery.He would later say in Jonestown that “I started devastating (God), I tore
that motherfucker to shreds and laid him out to rest . . . (Marceline and I) would
fight and she’d cry.We were washing
dishes one time and Marceline said, “I love you, but (don’t you) say anything
about the Lord anymore’. I said, “Fuck the Lord . . .we ended up in some
goddamn scrap and she threw a glass at me.

The one thing the couple agreed wholeheartedly
was their love of children and carrying for their needs, especially when the
parents refused to do so.They did this
with Marceline’s nine-year-old cousin Ronnie Baldwin and, in 1951, took him into
their own home in Indianapolis where Jim Jones was attending University of
Indiana’s campus there and working part time.Marceline worked nights at a children’s hospital.They loved Ronnie and gave the ten year old
his own room and a new bicycle.The three
would regularly go to the movies and take trips to Niagara Falls and Canada.And both were immensely hurt when Ronnie
refused to allow them to adopt him and instead returned to his mother.

By this time Jim and Marceline had an
adopted eleven-year-old girl named Agnes who they doted upon.

Agnes Jones

They added two Korean orphans four-year-old girl
Stephanie and two-year-old Lew with the intention of adopting a Rainbow family,
the idea first originating with Marceline.

Jim and Marceline Jones with from left to right - Lew, Stephan, Jim Jr. and standing Suzanne. Stephan and Jim Jr would escape The Guyana Massacre due to participating in a basketball game in Jonestown. Suzanne was estranged from her parents and spoke out against Rev Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. She died in 2006 due to colon cancer.

Marceline learned she was pregnant, and both she
and Jim were thrilled, but in May of 1959 that joy turned to sorrow when
Stephanie Jones was killed in a car crash by a drunk driver.Jim Jones led a group of children to a zoo
trip in Cincinnati.On the way back,
Stephanie Jones carpooled with another congregant and their vehicle was hit
head on by a drunk driver.

Jim Jones spent the terrible night identifying his daughter’s body and
arranging for her remains to be transported back to Indianapolis.He dreaded breaking the news to
Marceline.When he arrived home at dawn,
he woke his wife and gently explained that Stephanie had died in a car
crash.

It was still storming when Stephanie was laid to rest. The hole dug for her
coffin was half full of water.Jones
sobbed as Stephanie was lowered into the muck.He would recall later “Oh, Shit it was cruel, cruel.” (above, the Earlham Cemetery where Stephanie Jones is buried)

After Stephan was born in June of 1959,
Jim and Marceline learned Stephanie had a six-year-old sister (named Oboki) in
a Korean orphanage. They officially
adopted her and renamed her Suzanne.

In 1961 they became the first white
parents to adopt a black infant and named the child James Warren Jones Jr. (below)

Jones was never physically or sexually
abusive to his wife and his children.Though he mentally abused his wife Marceline there were numerous times
he expressed concern and affection for her.He applied for a pastoral position in Hawaii because he and Marceline
loved the island; and, in 1962, when he took Marceline to Brazil, one of the
places he was considering as the Peoples Temple home base, he sensed her
hesitancy, and to make her feel better, embraced her and together they sang
“I’ll be loving you always.”

While in Brazil, one of numerous places
he visited to find a safe haven for him and the Peoples Temple from nuclear
holocaust, Jones exhibited behavior that I found to be surprising since he had
a history of hurting animals:

When someone gave the Joneses a live duck for their
evening meal Jones couldn’t bear to kill it and insisted that they keep the
fowl as a pet.

Marceline and Jones and their children
also welcomed teenager Bonnie Malmin, daughter of an evangelist who lived in
Brazil, into their home where Jim Jones advised her on practicing safe sex,
including giving her a condom to carry in her purse when she went out with her
boyfriend, and teaching her moves on self defense.

Even though the children of the Peoples
Temple had certain rules – Jones exempted his own children and instead took
them on two-week vacations to Hawaii, Germany, and every World’s Fair. The Jones children also had a variety of
pets, allowed to go to the movie theater, wear higher quality clothes, and even
had their own housekeeper and maid. (far left, Jim Jones and Stephan Jones)

“We lived in a bubble, and it was usually good,” Jim Jones Jr. Remembers.

Jim Jones Jr and Jeff Guinn at Guinn's book signing/reading.

JIM JONES MINISTRY

Guinn also reveals the relentless work and arduous hours the Rev Jim Jones labored, particularly with his first church in Indianapolis Community
Unity. Sometimes the work days were so long that Jones did not get any sleep; numerous
speaking engagements; meetings with local officials; picketing on behalf of the
marginalized; feeding the hungry; clothing the naked; providing medical care to
the sick; preaching sermons which at times could be hours long; counseling
individual members; conducting church meetings; participating in grass-root movements
to integrate black businesses into white businesses, black churches into white
churches, black schools in to white schools – and by the end of the year Indianapolis,
largely due to Jones, was almost completely integrated and he did all of this
on a meager salary. (up left - Jim Jones in 1956 holding a family photograph).

Marceline’s salary
from her full-time job barely covered essentials for Jones’s immediate family.
So Jones worked, to selling spider monkeys door-to-door for $29 each.Beyond that, he held other part-time jobs,
anything to bring in a few extra dollars for the Community Unity cause.He slept when he could.

Another thing I learned in Guinn’s book is that
Jones was not always so stern and arduous in his sermons, especially when the
congregation consisted of children.

Rev Jim Jones delivering a sermon at Red Wood Valley Peoples Temple.

Sometimes
during services, Jones would stop preaching and tell the kids to get up and stretch.Once, he interrupted his own
Easter service to ask the youngsters what song they wanted to sing next.When they screamed “Here Comes Peter
Cottontail” that’s what the whole congregation sang, Jones’s pleasant voice booming
out loudest of all.

Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple youth at Red Valley

Guinn also reveals that many thought of Jones as
a man who preached like a black man but got things done like a white man who
was available to his congregation and those who needed him 24/7: all they had
to do was come to the Jones’s home and they were welcome.

The two homes the Joneses lived in during their years in Indianapolis. Photographs by Ryan Hamlet.

When The Peoples Temple moved to Ukiah,
California in July of 1965 even then Jim Jones and his attentiveness to each
member of his flock was well noted.

Jones himself was a constant, positive presence in every member’s
life.He had a remarkable memory for
names – everyone was addressed in some personal way, and made to feel special.If sometimes he rallied a little too long or
too ferociously at meetings, as members were taught to call services, Jones was
kindness itself in individual conversations.He addressed most women as “darling”, and younger men as “son.”There was no doubt he took his leadership
role seriously.Jones made a point of
telling everyone that he hardly slept.Followers were encouraged to call him in the middle of the night, if
necessary, and whenever anyone did Jim always seemed to be up and about.

Jim Jones and Sex

Jones did not have his first sexual
transgression until he lived in Brazil in 1962 where he claimed that he had sex
with a government official’s wife in exchange for a $5000 donation to an
orphanage.Jim Jones, with his wife
Marceline’s blessing, considered this a sacrifice he needed to make on behalf
of the People Temple.

It wasn’t until the summer of 1969 just after
their twentieth wedding anniversary that Jim Jones had his first sexual
affair with Carolyn Moore Layton (above in 1977), who became one of his two mistresses.By this time Marceline’s severe back problems
catapulted and her back gave completely out and she could no longer provide her
husband with his sexual needs.Marceline accepted this affair, though begrudgingly, but soon Jim Jones’s
sexual transgressions included another mistress – Maria Katsaris (below in 1978) – and then it included
whomever he chose – and in some cases it was other men.Guinn claims in his book that Jim Jones was
bi-sexual and held the belief that all human beings were homosexual at
heart.He also maintained this belief
that all women of all ages were attracted to him.

Jones’s sexual activities were at such “frantic
proportions” he had to have his “fuck schedule” a notebook and calendar of all
of his sexual appointments kept by Peoples Temple Member Patty Cartmell (below).

According to Guinn the only instance Jones
resorted to rape was with Debbie Layton (http://www.deborahlayton.net), which she recounted in
her memoir Seductive Poison. (below)

According to Guinn, there was only once incident
of statutory rape involving a fourteen-year-old girl.When the family found out they left the
Peoples Temple.

Part 04: Chris Rice Cooper:The One Disagreement I Have with Jeff Guinn

I
remember telling my husband that I was disappointed because Guinn did not mention Jim Jones's violent tendencies he exhibited as a child, particularly
the time he shot at childhood friend Don Foreman. (far left as a junior at Lynn High School).

By Jim Jones own account, according to Tim Reiterman
in Raven,
he admitted to exhibiting homicidal tendencies by the time he was in the third
grade in this quote that he stated only one year before The Guyana
Massacre:

“I
was ready to kill by the end of the third grade. I mean I was so fucking aggressive and
hostile, I was ready to kill. Nobody
give me any love, any understanding. In
those days a parent was supposed to go with a child to school functions. . .
There was some kind of school performance and everybody’s fucking parent was
there but mine. I’m standing there. Alone.
Always was alone.”

By the age of ten he was killing some animals
that he would use as props for funeral sermons; and with a small knife he would
cut the skin of animals in order to collect its blood and observe it under the
microscope his parents got him for Christmas.

Jones is in the back row, fifth from right

Tim Reiterman tells of the incidences of
violence that occurred between Jim Jones and childhood friend Don Foreman in
his book Raven.

Center middle: Jones in his 5th grade class.

The first incident occurred when both boys were
in junior high.Jim Jones grabbed the BB
gun that his father gave him and shot Don in the midsection.

A few months later Don loaned Jim a 22-caliber
rifle and armed himself with a .410 gauge shotgun to go rabbit hunting.Don noticed that Jim kept the rifle aimed at
his legs and asked him to be careful.

“I’ve been thinking about you demanding that you stop walking,” said Jim.

“What do you mean?”

“If you take one more step, I’ll shoot you.”

With that, the .22 discharged and a bullet tore through the tow of one of
Don’s shoes, narrowly missing his foot.

In their junior year of high school Jones
invited Don for lunch at his home; As dusk approached Don told Jim he had to
head home to do chores and walked to the front door out into the front porch,
and walked the walkway toward the sidewalk and then turned and glanced back at
Jim, who had his fingers clasped around the plastic handle of his father’s big
black pistol.

Standing and in back row: Jones is standing in the far left and Don Foreman is standing in the far right in their junior Lynn High School photo.

“Just stop, or I’ll shoot ya,” said Jim.

“Jim, I’m going home.”Suddenly Don
was worried.He pivoted ninety degrees
and headed down the tree-lined sidewalk. Some fifty feet behind him, on the
porch, Jim leveled the pistol in his direction.Almost instantaneously an explosion went off and a three-inch chunk of
bark went flying from a tree Don had just passed.A horrible ear- ringing noise hit him like a
blast of icy wind and set his legs in motion.

He lit out for the cover of a row of shrubs along the driveway. When he
was out of sight, he peered back through the greenery.Jim was staring from the porch, the gun
dangling at his side.”

Don Foreman’s account of some of the shootings are
included in the Biography Channel’s biography Jim Jones: Journey Into Madness and
in greater detail in Tim Reiterman’s biography on Jim Jones Raven.

I
sent Julia Scheeres the link to this blog post and she had issue with Jeff
Guinn’s statement to my question I asked him in the scripted interview, Part 2
section (quoted below in blue):

04.

Julia Scheeres,author of A Thousand Lives, said in an interview that Jonestown was a total
failure for numerous reasons one of which was that the soil was too thin to
ever grow self-sustaining crops.What is
your response to this?

I
think Julia overstated the problem. The soil was too thin for many crops, but
Jonestown settlers still produced impressive harvests. There wasn't enough food
because of overcrowding, not because the farm couldn't grow enough to sustain a
reasonably sized population.

In fact, Scheeres, in A Thousand Lives, goes
into great detail about the soil on pages 67 and 68:

The greatest challenge for Jim Bogue, who was quickly named farm manager
was the soil.The rain forest dirt
surprised him; it was completely different than the abundant, soft loam in
California.The topsoil was acidic and
only a few inches thick; underneath lay impenetrable red clay.If he scooped up a handful in his fist,
squeezed it and let it dry, it turned into a rock-hard ball.The United Nations classified the jungle soil
as “non-productive.”

Nevertheless, he threw himself at
the challenge. He spent all day, every day, learning the rhythms of tropical
agriculture from the natives, resorting to hand gestures when their broken
English failed.The Amerindians used
slash-and-burn agriculture. The ash from the burned vegetation added another
layer of nutrients to the thin soil, but themethod forced them to move their crop locations every few years as they
depleted nutrients and weeds outpaced the harvest.Bogue hoped that by sweetening the soil with
enough crushed seashell and wood ash, and by staying on top of the weeds he
could beat the odds and keep the Temple farm operating permanently.

The first crop he planted was a hundred acres of corn.Each of his crew of barefoot natives,
including men, women, kids, and seniors, carried a stick and would poke a hole
in the ground, drop in a few kernels, then cover them with a swipe of the foot
before walking a few paces and poking another hole.It took seventy-five workers several weeks to
plant the field

But as soon as the corn started silking, brown
moths appeared.They fluttered about the
emerald leaves like flecks of mud, each female depositing thousands of eggs on
the green stigmas.When the larva hatched,
they followed the silk into the ear, where they burrowed into the tender
kernels.Pesticides couldn’t penetrate
the cornhusks, so the Guyanese crew walked the field picking off the worms by
hand.They’d quickly fill two-gallon
buckets with the writing pests. Bogue lost half the crop, and learned a
valuable lesson:The jungle, with its
constant warmth and humidity, was the perfect petri dish for anything that
swarmed, slithered, infested, or infected.

There were other missteps.The
climate veered between droughts and downpours.During the wet season, monsoonlike rains washed away precious topsoil
and seedlings, something the pioneer learned to counteract by plowing along the
contour of the hills instead of up and down them and by protecting tender
sprouts in a covered plant nursery.During the dry season, they formed bucket brigades to transport water
from nearby creeks.

At first, they planted the same food they were used to eating: temperate
crops such as carrots, celery, and asparagus.But these never grew longer than a man’s pinkie; the soil chemistry
simply wasn’t right.They started over
with local greens: starchy tubers such as eddoes, sweet potatoes, and cassava,
legumes such as pigeon peas and cutlass beans, as well as bananas, pineapple,
and citrus fruits.They learned to adapt
and experiment, forever preoccupied with their urgent task: finding a way to
feed the hundreds of Temple members who would join them in the promised land.The mission’s success depended on their efforts.They planted thousands of orange trees, and
these were just starting to bear fruit when the farm came to its violent end,
four years later.

2 comments:

This piece is entirely enlightening and compelling. There are ALWAYS disparate sides to ANY story, and you've here that Jim Jones' story is no different. I found it utterly fascinating and informative. I know that anyone reading it will be surprised and educated regarding a man seen largely as among the greatest monsters of this time, or any time. Thank you, Chris! Happy to follow the blog! --JLS